


Helpmate

by Franzeska



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Fanfiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10763973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/pseuds/Franzeska
Summary: The Blanched Soldier did not go at all how Holmes told us.





	Helpmate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinetikatrue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/gifts).



It was January, 1903. It is recorded in my notebooks--both the one I would labor over in the light from our window, Watson peering over my shoulder, and the one I kept in private, in code--but I have no need of either to stimulate my memory.

Watson had been at me again to try my hand at the storyteller's art. I have implied that it was out of injured pride in his own work, but my criticisms had died off along with our conversation. Watson was seldom at home that winter. I have said that he had deserted me for a wife, but in truth, that January saw the early stages of the malady, not the final, fatal outbreak. Watson was courting, and though he has never evidenced any great talent for deduction, either prior to that period or since, he could hardly have failed to notice the deterioration of my mood. To put it simply, I did not want him to go, but there was nothing at all which I could do to prevent him.

It was in this cheery mood that I met a Mr. James M. Dodd, though not, I must confess, as a client.

Watson, in addition to his dereliction of me had fled the city entirely. An elderly patient was breathing her last in some far-flung locale. He would not be back for a week. In his absence, I had returned to one of my old haunts, a coffee house I had frequented in the years prior to our acquaintanceship. It had changed since that time: gone were the eager young medical students discussing the dissection of cadavers. In their place lounged military men, fresh from the conflict in Africa. Mr. Dodd was one of these, big, sunburned, and quintessentially British. When first I spotted him, he was staring moodily into his coffee. He did not seem inclined to conversation, and despite their military background, he and Watson could not have been more unlike. This suited my purposes admirably. I suited his purposes as well. I suspected that there existed some fellow whom I too was entirely unlike--though in my case that is rather more usual a situation.

The rooms above the coffee house were cramped and none too clean. Watson being away, I brought the gentleman home with me. He did not give his name, and I did not ask it. The unusual creatures who issued in and out of my rooms had long since ceased to arouse comment, and in any case, the need for caution had nearly passed.

Dodd was taciturn but athletic. His presence did me good, I think. My mind had been going round and round like a rat, and neither the needle nor any of my usual vices had sufficed.

After, I lay on my side watching him. A pleasant lassitude flowed over me--the first real peace I had felt in weeks. Dodd lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He was a man of conventionally enviable physique, muscles gleaming in the candlelight. A spray of faintly pinkish scars marked one side of his torso. They were not new, but neither were they many years old; a souvenir of his military service, no doubt. I traced my fingers over them. It was a foolishly intimate gesture, not at all characteristic of my normal behavior on such occasions. I resolved to be more regular, less abstemious, in my exertions. It would not lessen the sting of what was to come, but it might allow me to present a façade of greater equanimity. Watson was beginning to pry, and this would not do.

Dodd sighed. "It could have been a good deal worse," he said. "If a dear friend had not pulled me from under their guns."

"A dear friend indeed," I replied.

"None better."

To my surprise, Mr. Dodd became garrulous. He told me of this friend, the son of a distinguished military man and himself a crack shot. They had shared a campaign for a year. It was obvious from his speech that they had shared a bedroll as well--and a great deal more than that.

"We were to take rooms together in London," he said at last. "We talked of what we would do after the fighting."

"What happened?"

"An elephant gun. A dirty sneak attack." His hand clenched on mine. "But, damn it, he should have made it. Godfrey was a fighter."

I am not much given to imagination. I deal in facts: verifiable hypotheses and data from which the truth can be sieved. Nonetheless, I pictured it for a moment: one man cradling the other, soft vows whipped away by the noise of the battlefield.

"And there were the letters."

Like most romantic fancies, this one proved erroneous. "He survived the battle then?"

"Yes, and wrote to me. First from the hospital at Cape Town, and then from Southampton. Two letters written in his own hand and full of the old vigor. He said it was all superficial, and he'd soon be back on the leg. A fever, they said, but I can't believe it. Not after the voyage and all that time."

The last he said with real passion. Despite the regular sort of arrangement, where names are not exchanged and addresses are conveniently forgotten, I felt a prickle of professional interest. "Go on," I said.

"I was late. It was months before I got out myself. I should have hurried home, but I thought there was time. The second letter wasn't so long past, and the post isn't dependable when you're chasing Brother Boer. I expected to find him waiting in London as we'd agreed, but no one had seen hide nor hair of him. The only thing I could think to do was to write to his family, but I received no answer. Finally, I resolved to go down to his family estate and get the lie of the land." He shivered. "Godfrey never spoke much of his father, and I could see why: a hard old bird, twice as tough as any of the commanding officers we had in the army."

"And he told you of Godfrey's fate?"

"Not at once. He hemmed and hawed and demanded to know what I was doing there. When he saw that I wouldn't budge, he said I could see Godfrey. I was suspicious, naturally, but I followed him out of the house and through a dilapidated hedge maze to an old grove of cyprus. In the center of that stood a statue of a hideous weeping woman. I suppose she must have been intended as the Virgin, but she looked more like a leper with the lichen growing all over her face. He pointed to the inscription, and there it was clear as day: Godfrey's name carved into the base. They've gone and buried him in the garden and not the local churchyard at all. And I bloody well don't believe it was a fever."

The circumstances were indeed suggestive. "Did you speak to the rest of the household?" I asked.

Dodd shook his head. "Too shaken, I suppose. I could have stood anything out in the bush, but get me back home and I turn into a craven coward. And anyhow, there isn't much of it. Godfrey has pots of money held in trust, but his father is an abstemious old bastard. They never have more than a few staff, family retainers as old as the house, I shouldn't wonder. His mother's an invalid."

"No other siblings?"

"No." He looked at me curiously.

"You think fever unlikely?"

"I think…" Here, Dodd paused. His face had a pattern of laugh lines made more pronounced by the work of the sun. This expression of anguish was unnatural to him. "I very much fear he made away with himself. Otherwise, why not the churchyard? That's where they've parked the rest of the forebears since time immemorial."

"Was he a melancholy type?"

"No, hang it all! Always cheerful, but he never spoke much of his father."

I could see the trend of his thoughts. An old military friend strangely unwelcome, a domineering father, an estranged son. "Hmm," I said. "I think, perhaps, it is time we introduced ourselves. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I should very much like to see that statue."

***

I rarely stay the night or induce another to do so. Mr. James M. Dodd, his name now known to me, was the exception. There was something familiar and comforting about his misery, as little as I would admit to requiring comfort.

The presence of a visitor unsettled me, and we were both awake at dawn. It was well that we were, for no sooner had we dressed than I heard a footstep on the stair. In the bowels of hell, I should know that step. On the stairs of Baker Street, I could hardly fail to identify it.

"Watson," I said as he came in. "What an unexpected pleasure."

He started at the sight of our guest so early in the morning, but they greeted each other heartily enough.

"A case?" he asked eagerly.

I assented. "But, my dear Watson, I had not thought to see you for the rest of the week."

"The lady is much improved. Her husband has persuaded her to make do with a medical man nearer to home."

Dodd repeated his story, this time with rather less emphasis on his friend's vigor or his eye color. His agitation was still plain to see, and Watson was clearly moved. He mentioned a few of his own friends from the service.

***

Godfrey Emsworth came from a place called Tuxbury Old Park, near Bedford. Tuxbury Old Hall itself was isolated. I judged that a visit so soon upon the heels of Mr. Dodd's departure would be precipitous. I wished to have certain facts in my possession before speaking to Colonel Emsworth.

We found accommodation in a village some miles off under the guise of nature enthusiasts, here on a healthful walking excursion. We would indeed be walking. I was not certain it would be good for any of our health.

Watson stood in the doorway of our shared room. He watched me with a pensive expression on his face.

"Well, Watson?"

"You don't suppose there's more to this, do you?"

"There's always more to any case."

"I mean Dodd's story. Why would he hit upon suicide so quickly? The man had no reason for it."

There was a queer note in Watson's voice that I could not place. "Clients often keep something back," I agreed. "You have another theory?"

"No, no. It just seems odd."

I have known Watson long enough to tell when he is lying, but I did not press him. Whatever theory he had formed would be of no use: we needed facts.

***

Tuxbury Old Hall was situated in a depression, its inauspicious bulk surrounded by dark, gloomy trees. From our vantage point, we made out the hedge maze, badly overgrown, and the area of cyprus beyond it. There was no difficulty in accessing this: the walls were in poor repair, and there was no sign of a dog or a groundskeeper.

Our little party came to a stop before the statue. It was as horrible in aspect as Dodd had promised. Lichens had bloomed across its face, giving it a grotesque, leprous appearance. The name 'Godfrey Emsworth' had been carved into its base. I knelt to examine the letters. They were fresh, each cut quite sharp and clean of lichen.

I became aware of a footfall upon the gravel pathway and motioned the others to silence. The moon was up, but the hedges and trees around us provided ample shadow. The footsteps continued at a measured pace.

A man emerged from the hedge maze. Looking neither right nor left, he continued past the statue and through a break in the trees. After a moment, I followed him. Ahead stood an outbuilding. A gamekeeper's cottage perhaps. The man's key turned in the lock. In such a quiet part of the night, the sound carried clearly.

"What the devil?" Dodd said at my shoulder.

"You didn't recognize him?"

"No."

"I should have said he was a medical man."

"Yes, Watson, so should I. I want a closer look at that building."

"I'll come along." Watson patted the pocket with his revolver.

"You will both stay here."

I followed after the man. Small, neat, dressed respectably: Watson does not always _see_ , but I fancied he could pick out a fellow medical man.

The building itself was a small cottage. I peered in. Most of the lower storey was taken up by a room with an enormous fireplace. Coals glowed in the grate. The fire must have been burning for some time. The doctor was not in sight. The upper storey was accessed by a staircase beyond the fireplace, or in my case, by a favorably situated trellis. It was the work of moments to ascend.

The shutters were closed. Light shone through a few cracks. I leaned to press my eye against one of these. The upper storey was more divided than the lower. The room into which I was peering could not make up more than half of it. Inside, the medical man bent over a bed on which a figure was lying.

That was as much as I could tell. My observations were interrupted by an enraged yell from the gardens. I quickly slipped down the trellis and made my way back to the statue. It was a sideways, slithering job, for the path to the cottage was more open, and I had no desire to be seen.

A man stood before the statue. He had the carriage and vocabulary of a seasoned military man. In daylight, his face would no doubt have been red, nearly puce. Under the current circumstances, it was washed out by the moonlight, adding an ethereal quality to a less than ethereal tirade. Colonel Emsworth: it could be no other.

"What the devil do you mean by coming back here."

"I had to see him again, sir." Dodd stood before him, his own chin set in a scowl.

"Damned cheek, that's what it is!"

"You must put it down, sir, to my real love for your son."

This did not placate the colonel. He swelled up as if to deliver another speech.

"I am going," Dodd said. "Good evening, sir."

He strode away toward the hedge maze and the front gate. The colonel stood fuming for a moment, then hurried after him.  
"Well, Watson," I said at last. "Let us see if we can get back over the wall without further incident."

***

We found Dodd lurking in the lane. He must have circled around the property at a tremendous pace. His hair was stuck to his brow with sweat despite the chilly night air, and his eyes shone whitely in the moonlight.

"He got the drop on me, Mr. Holmes," he said. "The old bastard moves like the very wind itself."

"Hmm… yes, it is unfortunate, but not unrecoverable, though I fancy we shall need to lure him out of the house if we are to gain access to his wife."

"His wife?" Watson asked. "The invalid?" He shifted closer to me as we walked, a sort of human shield between me and Dodd, though this was a strange fancy brought on, no doubt, by the hour and the eerie ground fog that had begun to form.

"A wrong has been done here, and we shall need her help if it is to be put right."

"How can it be?" Dodd was still overcome.

"You observed the leprous statue?"

"Yes, and the bloody great name at its base."

"Hmm, yes, the name, so newly carved that not a scrap of moss or lichen has attached to it, yet the statue itself appears to have been in place for some years. Lichens are, as a rule, slow growing, and those particular species especially so. Does this not suggest certain possibilities to you?"

"You mean he's not buried there," Watson said.

"Precisely."

"Then why the monument?"

" _Precisely._ "

They both trailed after me in confusion, but I did not elaborate. I am a logical man, even an abrupt one. I like to think that I am not a cruel one.

***

The next day was sunny but cold. We made our way to Bedford, the nearest town of any great size. There, I hired a coach, a sensible enclosed affair with room for all of us, and a driver. A hefty lad of about 18. He was sober, unimaginative, and disinclined to ask questions. We arranged to meet that evening.

"What's all that about then," Dodd asked. "He wanted enough, didn't he."

"An outlay of capital that I expect to pay off handsomely, Mr. Dodd."

"Really, Holmes, you must give us some clue."

"Very well, I shall tell you: we will also require a ladder and some lengths of rope."

***

That night was colder than the previous, and clouds obscured the moon. Not a pleasant night to be abroad. Ideal for my purposes.

The wall could be easily managed without the ladder, but I insisted that we haul it over with us. Dodd and Watson carried it between them. They were much of a height and both quite strong. It remained only to test my hypothesis conclusively.

The little cottage was dark tonight, save for the remains of a dying fire. The lock was of an ordinary type, easily dispensed with. We entered and stood warming our hands.

The walls around us were covered with photographs of a boy, then a young man, at various stages of growth. He was an unusually handsome lad, pretty even, before maturity had filled his features into something more masculine.

Dodd had wandered toward the newest of these photos. It showed a robust young man with fair hair and a merry look about his eyes. His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, and he was grinning. The bulge of muscle was quite apparent under his shirtsleeves. It was a startlingly informal picture and seemed to catch far more of its subject's personality than the others. On the battlefield, he must have been quite breathtaking.

I laid a hand on Dodd's shoulder.

"Shall we search upstairs," Watson interposed, rather more loudly than I would have preferred.

Dodd shook himself. "Lead the way then," he said to me.

I ascended the short staircase, ready for some assailant to spring upon me, but there was no one.

At the top of the staircase lay two rooms, both bare of invalids or any other human soul. One had the smell of disuse. The bed was neatly made, but dust had begun to collect about the furnishings. The other room had seen more recent use. It was the one into which I had peered the night before. In this case, the bed was rumpled and the air smelled more of sweat than of dust. The scent was beginning to be wiped away by fresh air from the window, which stood open. A nightshirt lay over the foot of the bed. I sniffed it: worn, sweated through, and recently.

"We must find the patient," I said. "Quickly now."

"Mrs. Emsworth?" Watson asked. "Surely, the colonel would not keep her _here_."

"Very likely not, but nevertheless, we must search the grounds."

***

Outside, the night was colder than ever. A wind had begun to wind itself through the trees, and their scratching together made an eerie sound. The ivy on the trellis waved in the breeze. The trellis itself remained firmly affixed to the house. I examined it closely.

"Someone may have come this way, or these could be my own footmarks from yesterday. It is difficult to be sure."

"An invalid couldn't have got down that," Watson said. "Holmes, won't you tell us what you suspect?"

"All in due time. We must spread out and trust that no one passed us in the dark."

We searched the shrubberies and copses closest to us, moving towards the house. I was to the left, examining first a half-abandoned section of apple trees, and then the dilapidated beginnings of the hedge maze. Watson was off on the far side, where the cyprus trees grew denser. Some Emsworth ancestor must have had a macabre taste in garden design.

Dodd's voice rang out from somewhere in the hedge maze. It was a cry of terror.

I rushed toward the sound. The walls of the maze enclosed me, but I could see through the gaps left by careless pruning and the layout was known to me from our earlier surveillance. I soon found myself at the center. 

Watson was there already, crouched beside Dodd. He looked up as I approached. "Mr. Dodd's had a shock. We should return to the carriage."

"No," said Dodd. "No." He staggered to his feet, eyes turned inexorably back the way we had come.

"Yes, let us retrace our steps," I said.

Together, Watson and I hauled Dodd to his feet, and the three of us set off towards the back of the maze. Several turns later, we exited to the clearing with the statue. Its face was even more horrible now, alive with moonlight and shadow. A sudden break in the clouds bathed the clearing in moonlight, and there, under the trees, we saw it: a figure in white.

Dodd gave a cry of alarm. "Godfrey!" he gasped.

The figure came forward, its white clothing billowing around it. It was a man, his skin pale as a fishbelly. He was hardly recognizable as the man from the photographs. "James? Good God, _James?_ "

He stumbled and fell against the statue, then recoiled from it as though burned. His voice rasped out again: "What are you doing here?"

Dodd stared at him, breathing like a spooked horse.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Emsworth, that your father has put out some rather implausible rumors."

Emsworth took a step towards us, but his strength seemed to fail him, and he stumbled again. Dodd's paralysis broke, he surged toward Emsworth and caught his arm. "My friend," he stammered. "Godfrey. He said you were _dead_."

Emsworth laid a hand on Dodd's shoulder. The moonlight still gave him an eerie look, but his hand was real enough. "For shame, John," he said. "It will take more than my old man to do me in."

***

"You expected this," Watson said as we hurried back to the wall.

So far, there was no sign of pursuit, but Dodd's cry had not been quiet, and we had no desire to encounter the colonel. Dodd was helping the younger Emsworth to mount the ladder now. A scramble over the wall might have been too much for him, under the circumstances.

"I expected to have to carry him out on an improvised stretcher," I said.

"But you knew the patient was Godfrey Emsworth?"

"I suspected. I had no proof."

"Then why not say so in the first place?"

"If I gave away all of my secrets, I should have no more tricks with which to astound you, Watson."

***

"He didn't like the idea of me living in London," Emsworth said when we were safely back at the inn. "He said it was a 'corrupting influence'." He and Dodd exchanged glances.

Beside me, Watson was tense. "But to declare his own son a lunatic… To think that a medical man would go along with such a pretense…" 

Emsworth sighed. In the ruddy light of the inn fire, he was no longer otherworldly, but he was pale. The elder Emsworth must have ordered the shutters to be kept tightly closed much of the time. This was a young man who had not seen sunlight of late. It was a sharp contrast to Dodd's own tanned countenance.

"My father is a powerful man," Emsworth said at last. "And we are an old family. He would not countenance any blot on the old escutcheon."

Dodd's throat was a mottled red. "You're not a… a blot, Godfrey."

"No, old boy. No, of course not."

Watson watched this little performance with a pensive air.

"But what are we going to do about him, Godfrey?" Dodd asked. "He's told everyone you're _dead_ for Pete's sake."

"Hardly everyone," I interjected. "I suspect that this particular news was conveyed to only a select few."

All three of them turned to look at me.

"Given the… err… nature of the proposed blot, I fancy that Mr. Dodd was the intended target of that little carving in the garden. You hardly move in the same circles as the colonel's friends, most of whom could be put off with a story of his son having gone abroad. A round the world cruise would suit the purpose nicely, I imagine."

Emsworth's lips tightened. "Yes, that sounds like father. He wouldn't have hesitated to dig the knife in. But wouldn't it be safer to tell everyone the same story?"

"Not at all. A death would bring unwanted attention, so a convenient absence would have been much more suitable for most parties' ears, but can you honestly say, Mr. Dodd, that you would have given up looking upon hearing such a story?"

"I damn well wouldn't!" Dodd expostulated.

Emsworth shot him a fond glance.

"I still don't see how he hoped to get away with it," Watson said. His eyes traveled between Emsworth and Dodd. "Any doctor could see you're perfectly sane."

"Not if he got me locked away in an institution," Emsworth said. "People go mad just being in those places, and there are plenty of unscrupulous ones that will accept a bribe. That's why I legged it down the ivy as soon as I got a chance."

"You had not been held in that room long?" I inquired.

"Hardly. He locked me in the basement to start with, like it was a bloody dungeon."

That explained the pallor then.

"But what are we going to do now?" Watson asked. "Mr. Emsworth can hardly go back to London with nothing more than his nightshirt, and there's still the question of the medical man."

"No, a flight in the darkness won't suit at all. That was only for the initial stage. I had expected to find Mr. Emsworth in rather worse condition."

Emsworth snorted. "He locked me in. He didn't tie me up. There was nothing much to do besides my calisthenics and letting him think his quack doc had talked me 'round a bit. Trying the treatments and all that--as if I'd ever!"

He exchanged another speaking glance with Dodd. I found my eyes on Watson, who was still watching them closely. I could not read his expression.

"What of your mother?" I asked.

"He told her I was sick, I suppose. He couldn't have told her the truth. She'd never…" He swallowed. "She's not well. A shock could be too much for her."

"It could, couldn't it," I said. "Mr. Emsworth, would you say that your father is protective of her? Is there any great depth of feeling there?"

"Probably the only feelings he does have. Why?"

"Then I believe a trip to your family home on the morrow would be most efficacious."

***

And so it proved. Mrs. Emsworth was overjoyed to see her son, pale but upright and obviously in good spirits. Watson's invaluable second opinion revealed that the first doctor, a Mr. Kent, to be over-hasty. These things could happen to any medical man, Watson had admitted grudgingly. A specialist was often needed in a more ambiguous case, but he was prepared to swear that young Mr. Emsworth's malady had been of a temporary and non-recurring nature.

Mrs. Emsworth was overjoyed, and when her husband arrived in the middle of the interview, red-faced and furious, he'd had to submit with good grace. His son would return to London, where the change of scenery was guaranteed to chase off the last of the malady.

***

"Well, they're off."

Watson turned and walked into the inn. I followed, sensing something amiss in his tense shoulders and strained manners. When we reached the room and its sliver of privacy, he turned to me.

"I saw you," he said.

I waited.

"She threw me over, you know. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

This must be the prospective Mr.s Watson. I had never met her. I found myself neither surprised nor unsurprised.

"Don't look so pleased. I feel such a fool."

"I am told that ladies often change their minds."

"You're told? Yes, you'd have to be, wouldn't you?" He punctuated this alarming remark by beginning to pace. "Good God, Holmes, to see you in _that_ blasted coffee house."

"I thought their brew exemplary myself."

"That is not what I mean, and I am sure you must know it," said Watson furiously. "The medical students used to go there, you know. God, you probably do know…"

It had not occurred to me to make the connection, an unusual lapse of my critical faculties, but this was Watson.

"At first I told myself you were on a case, but no client would arrive at that indecent hour." He paced back and forth. "Damn it, man, can't you see how dangerous it is?"

"I am well acquainted with the dangers." The coffee was only acceptable. If Watson had indeed stopped there while returning from his client's home, it was possible, even likely he had been seeking some other refreshment.

"Have you no sense?"

I had feared revulsion, horror. This was something else. "You can't possibly be _jealous?_ "

He flushed.

"My dear, Watson…" I approached him carefully.

"It's all very well in the army," he said. "It's not at all the same thing…"

A fine statement from a man who'd visited the same coffee house, or at least peeped in its windows. "Are you going to have me locked up for my own good?"

"Holmes!" Now he did look revolted.

I laughed and reeled him in.

It was quite the oddest case of my recollection, and yet none of the most interesting details will ever find their way to print. Watson has so sanitized the account that I accused him of making it up wholecloth. His response was an acerbic injunction to try my own hand and see how easy I find it to do and not simply to criticize, but this is foolishness. It comes out tomorrow, and I shall enjoy seeing what he has made of it in print.


End file.
